Builder to break ground on military clinics

Published: Tuesday, July 22, 2014 at 08:07 PM.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Navy and the Department of Veterans Affairs will host a public groundbreaking next month to celebrate the beginning of construction on two new medical clinics at the Navy base.

Billy W. Jarrett Construction already has begun work on the project, located near the Tom Thumb at
6862 Magnolia Beach Road
, said Jerron Barnett, a spokesman for the VA’s Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System.

Members of the public are welcome at the ceremony, which will commence at 9 a.m. Aug 7, at the building site.

The project consists of two buildings. One is a roughly 30,000-square-foot Community Based Outpatient Clinic for the Gulf Coast VA; the other is a roughly 5,300-square-foot Naval Branch Health Clinic for the U.S. Navy. The larger building has a projected cost of $8.49 million; the smaller facility’s projected cost is $1.79 million, Barnett said.

Barnett said the project is not a response to recent criticism of the VA for lengthy waits for care.

“It’s actually been in the works for a number of years,” he said.

The
Panama City
outpatient clinic, which will be replaced by the new facility when construction is complete, was the only facility in the
Gulf
Coast
system that was not flagged for further investigation of “suspected willful misconduct” in an audit report released in June.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — The Navy and the Department of Veterans Affairs will host a public groundbreaking next month to celebrate the beginning of construction on two new medical clinics at the Navy base.

Billy W. Jarrett Construction already has begun work on the project, located near the Tom Thumb at 6862 Magnolia Beach Road, said Jerron Barnett, a spokesman for the VA’s Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System.

Members of the public are welcome at the ceremony, which will commence at 9 a.m. Aug 7, at the building site.

The project consists of two buildings. One is a roughly 30,000-square-foot Community Based Outpatient Clinic for the Gulf Coast VA; the other is a roughly 5,300-square-foot Naval Branch Health Clinic for the U.S. Navy. The larger building has a projected cost of $8.49 million; the smaller facility’s projected cost is $1.79 million, Barnett said.

Barnett said the project is not a response to recent criticism of the VA for lengthy waits for care.

“It’s actually been in the works for a number of years,” he said.

The Panama City outpatient clinic, which will be replaced by the new facility when construction is complete, was the only facility in the GulfCoast system that was not flagged for further investigation of “suspected willful misconduct” in an audit report released in June.

“We work on improving access every day, so we certainly hope the new building will be a bridge to that,” Barnett said.

The current VA facility employs 59 people and serves about 5,500 veterans, but the VA expects a 28 percent increase in veteran enrollment in the Florida Panhandle within 10 years.

The Naval Branch Health Clinic will provide care to more than 1,400 TRICARE beneficiaries, as well as occupation health care to the 2,200 civilian employees who work at Naval Support Activity Panama City, said Jason Bortz, a spokesman for Naval Hospital Pensacola, which oversees 10 branch clinics including the current clinic on the base.

Construction is scheduled to last about year and conclude by June 30, 2015.

A representative of Billy W. Jarrett Construction could not be reached for comment Tuesday.